MPs criticise UK cash links with Nigeria

In a report released yesterday, the House of Commons public accounts committee said it had been told that a UK government-backed fund had indirect links to James Ibori, a former Delta State governor convicted of laundering millions of pounds in public money.
The allegations form part of a highly critical report into the workings of the Private Infrastructure Development Group (PIDG) an organisation set up by the government in 2002 to invest in infrastructure projects in developing countries.
“We are concerned that [the Department for International Development or DfID] has insufficient assurance over the integrity of PIDG’s investments and the companies with which it works”, the report said.
The concerns stem from one particular fund run by PIDG, the Emerging Africa Infrastructure Fund. The committee also said it had been contacted by a source alleging that the fund was previously part-owned by Emerging Capital Partners, (ECP) a US-based fund. ECP bought shares in companies that anti-corruption campaigners say were used by allies of Mr Ibori to help launder money gained through fraud, but has previously denied any wrongdoing. Both ECP and the government deny it owned or managed the government-backed fund, but the committee said it had not been provided with “all the documentary evidence necessary” to back up those denials.
The claims come two years after the Financial Times reported that ECP had links with a separate DfID-backed fund, known as CDC, which has also previously denied wrongdoing.
Separately, the report said the fund had also spent up to £30m on a gas project in Nigeria run by a company previously named in connection with an investigation into the looting of oil revenues.
In September 2014, according to the committee, it gave the money to Seven Energy Finance, a Nigerian company, to help pay for a gas processing plant run by Seven Energy. Seven Energy was one of the companies named by Lamido Sanusi, the former CBN governor in an investigation he conducted into looting of Nigerian oil revenues. (Financial Times)